I know I have more back pain when I am stressed and or depressed. I have back issues anyway but usually manageable.

IBS is another issue I have. That has been improving since a medication change.

Migraines....either hormone or tension triggered.

I am lucky in the fact that none of these really disables me....except the back pain for a couple of days now and then.

You are lucky. I'm on Disability for all my bs, and I HATE IT People think you've "got it made", "That's awesome" "you can stay home and do what you want all the time" No, if I'm Disability, there's something really wrong with me.

So at least you get to go out and mingle in society. Think of yourself as lucky

I am convinced to the very fiber of my being that the physical and mental are fully intertwined. Not that our illnesses are a personal choice. The idea that anyone would CHOOSE to be sick is absurd. Given the choice, I would choose nothing but good health. But still, the parts are fully integrated. What impacts one component impacts the whole system. Accentuate the positive.

Yay you for keeping on the sunny side. Have you decided where you want your beach house? Esmeraldas is quite beautiful...

To me, pain is pain--- emotional and physical acn feed off each other pretty well and worsen each other. Tension from anxiety and then anxiety causes tension and around it goes....

I'm told I'm not doing badly but I don't buy it most days.

There are a lot of people that don't get it. If it isn't a disability they can see or if you dare smile and go for a walk they figure you don't have it so bad.

I spent a couple of years not being able to leave the house because I was afraid to. No one really "got" that.

I'm glad you are staying positive :-)

Yes, that mind/body connection is a fact here for many of us, so you don't have to hesitate here, in my experience. It's not just psychosomatic, either. PTSD is a brain condition in which the physical brain has been altered by a trauma. The physical brain, not the mind, altered like, say, the liver would be altered by hepatitis. So the consequences play out for the other organs of the body, too.

Unfortunately, of all the organs of the body, the one least mapped out is: (drum roll) the brain. So though I may sound like I'm talking like a doctor, I'm definitely not. It's just that this is new science, and in the meantime we patients have got to rely on each other.

The brain-mind-body connection is real, and yes, a lot of us deal with symptoms in the body from it.

I'm happy that I can be somewhere where people actually get it. I have so few people actually believe me. They think that bc I do nothing, that it's a choice. Sorry, I don't choose to sit here, all day, every day, doing nothing. But when they see me doing that, their mind comes to no other conclusion. God forbid the US Gov't would actually know what they're talking about.

I do my best not to hate anything, but I hate this. I can see why people may think they know what I am doing, nothing, but when I bust out the neck collar to wear whenever I have to go out in public, and leave it on the whole time, wouldn't that tell you SOMETHING???

@ Moon...I actually probably understand pretty well.

The idea of having no job sounds really, really miserable to me.
Not that I'm enraptured to be working and all, I just like having something I need to get up and do.
I want and need the structure a job entails.

I will say that I am glad that you were able to GET disability because you NEED disability. If you needed it and could not get it that would be even worse than needing it.

Chronic pain is well-known to make depression worse, or cause it. I seem to remember that some antidepressants help some chronic pain disorders; I believe a couple of the tricyclics do that in specific.

Same thing...usually physical PTSD pain comes when I am really struggling emotionally or psychologically. My counselor calls it muscle memory. I also have gi issues when I am stressed. I find that bilateral stimulation or simple exercise like the elliptical (it's easy on the joints) work really well to diminish the physical pain.

....and I totally blipped out on your original question...
When I am depressed, body aches seem to hurt worse. I also seem to lose some muscle strength and flexibility.

When really severely depressed, my spectacular allergies get better... That probably means I'm actually somewhat immuno-compromised when severely depressed.

Sometimes my physical pain causes a evil playback loop for the PTSD. PTSD makes me want to isolate. I manage to do something to get away from that and my arthritis and asthma kick in, putting me back in the house. Like yesterday.
Was doing well with being out almost all day. Did some shopping (no crowded stores- it was pouring out) and was kinda enjoying it. Then my asthma kicked up from the high pollen count (I should have used AC in car, not windows). My bad hip then started to complain. So now I have been up on and off most of the night from the pain. It's making want to not go out tomorrow. This sucks.

The worst for me is that my PTSD is two-fold: complex from a long abusive childhood and "simple"---from the accident that left me bedridden and disabled and in serious chronic pain for the foreseeable future (aka rest of my life).... So pain triggers the "simpler" PTSD and that lets out the cPTSD and I get tense and sick to my stomach and the pain gets worse and...

This is one carousel I don't wanna ride, and they took my one pain pill away. I got a single 5/500 Vicodin per day. That was it. I took it so I could sleep 4 hours without hurting. that was all.... but I live too close to some drug mill of a pain clinic, apparently, so.... all the local docs are taking patients off anything the DEA might dislike. *sigh*

Sorry to add to the list of woes but this is just... ridiculous to me. I don't lie here on ice packs and heating pads and special foam cushions because it's fun, y'know? I can't tolerate normal sitting from the accident damage so even if PTSD wasn't there, I can't go out to a movie or restaurant or normal stuff to begin with--- add in the pain and I just basically want to start screaming.

I don't, of course. I cry. I punch clay. I tell myself it will improve. But sheesh, I'd like to know *when*, y'know?

OK, enough of that, just sending out a big warm hug to all of us who have to deal with the double-triple whammy....